


One Day

by howveryzoe



Category: Spring Awakening - Sheik/Sater
Genre: Angst, Canon Setting, Fluff, Historical, M/M, Romance, also lowkey on helpless and on like melchior's letters to wendla??, also sa confess and her weird ass priest kink headcanons, dwsa based, idk what im doing with this i'll tag more later, im not gonna pretend the play didn't influence me as well cause i read that, influenced by andy's headcanons on them going to separate schools, whatever
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-12-24
Updated: 2015-12-21
Packaged: 2018-05-08 02:28:08
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Rape/Non-Con, Underage
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,276
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5479871
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/howveryzoe/pseuds/howveryzoe
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sometimes they think they're the one thing keeping the other human. The one person in the universe stopping them from losing whatever they have left of themselves. Other days they just think they're fools.</p>
            </blockquote>





	One Day

The first letter came two weeks after Hanschen went away.

He had gone to school in Berlin after finals. Ernst had passed but not well enough to go to any form of higher education.

Besides, his lipreading was awful, it was best (or so Papa said) for him to stay home. He would care for Papa in his old age. Care for his little sisters when before they went **O** ut **I** nto **T** he **W** orld. Something he would never do. He was to stay home on the farm with Mama and Papa. He was to be good and obedient and bow his head. He was to go to church and pray till his hand were red and his knees were bleeding. Till he forgot how much his heart hurt and forgot what he was praying for. He is not to marry. People like him are not supposed to marry. Papa is a blunt man. He told him this very young.

_"Honestly Ernst, do you think Germany needs more people like you? Be logical, you wouldn't let a leper have children it's the same thing. We're a new empire we need to protect it. You can't fight. You can't help your country."_

So life is to be lived in a loveless fashion. He pretends he is lucky. They whisper of parents who do things to make them not have children at all. And remember what happened to poor dead Wendla Bergmann? It wasn't that far from eugenics.

Hanschen never wanted to talk about her. He would always change the subject. They'd been family friends. Both bourgeois their parents had encouraged the friendship. Ernst always suspected he had thought he would marry her. It would've been a good match. They would've both been fine with the other's tendencies. Have a few children but happy with the other taking lovers on the side. It would've been all fine. 

But she's dead and that's ruined. She's dead but Ernst is alive. They all have to live in the aftermath of their youth.

He's seventeen. He's no child. No innocent rose colored boy high up in a vineyard with flowers and bare feet.

Georg goes off to music school. Plans on being a concert pianist. Otto goes to some school in Munich and tries to pass for hearing. Day and night he holds his hand over his mouth forcing words from his lips. Tortures himself. Melchior goes away and fights against everything and anything. He isn't heard from for a good long time. The girls stay home and try to find husbands. 

Hanschen goes to boarding school. Hanschen doesn't get to say goodbye. Thea tells him. Hanschen is gone like smoke and Ernst is alone.

A L O N E.

He's always been shy but social. He doesn't need many friends but always at least one. His sisters are too busy and to young to talk to him. Mama is always sewing or working or distancing herself. Ever since last fall when she saw him and Papa that night she's barely signed a word at him. It only makes him feel dirtier. Life is so dark sometimes he can't see and then what?

He's been going like this for two weeks since finals when Ilse walks by his house in the early morning.

He's feeding the pigs, feeling the sun on his neck and hoping that it'll stay sunny and won't rain and that he'll have time to paint the morning. The view of the hills from his house are the one thing he likes about being alone. Only his eyes have them.

Then she appears out of what feels like thin air, all white lace and stumbling feet. Her reddish hair shines in the morning sunlight. Waving her hand over her head she calls out to him, signing his name in the air.

"Ernst! It's me Ilse! You remember me right?" She signs at him, running up the hill and pushing past the gate. He drops the pail of scraps on the ground and runs towards her. His face breaks into a huge smile. When has he last seen someone outside his family? Two weeks ago, yes, but it all fell apart as finals rolled around. It's been more like months. Felt like years.

"Ilse! Of course I remember you, how could I forget? You pushed me in the river when we were small. I couldn't swim and you taught me." He smiles at the memory and wraps his arms around her, pulling her into a tight hug. She returns it grinning broadly. Pulling away he looks at her beaming. 

"I remember that! You were so small, small, frail little Ernst. Now you're tall and strong, just look at you." She stands back to admire him. He wants to shirk from her view. "So big! Getting married soon I guess?"

"No, Papa doesn't want me to." He signs awkwardly glancing at his feet, painfully aware of the man in the house with the cold blue eyes.

"Good thing too. Marriage is no fun. Ruins people. Come out with me to the colony! It's much better than marriage!" She swings her arms a bit. He can't help but think her eyes look cracked. Like all the tears leaked out years ago and now they're just shattered glass.

"I have to take care of my family Ilse. But how are you? I haven't seen you since that November." They both know what he refers too. No one can forget that November.

"Oh, I've been you know...Living! Isn't that all that counts?" She swings her arm about and he notices something white and stiff in her hand. "But, we're not here for me oh no, we're here for you." She taps his nose and closes her eyes. Before he has time to relax she extends her arm out towards him with the white stiff paper held out. "Melitta and Thea gave me this. They say it's for you."

His heart rises in his throat. _Melitta and Thea_. Hanschen's sisters. He can only hope. Slowly he takes it from her. "Thank you Ilse. Do you want to come for breakfast? I'm sure we could spare some for you?"

"No, I've got to go. Johann's painting me as the Virgin Mary today. I can't be late. I think I'll look positively biblical don't you?" She smiles strangely and flings her shall over her head. Ernst nods awkwardly. "Well, I'll see you Ernst." She signs and runs down the hill, tripping in the same way she had before.

He can never figure out Ilse Neumann. She's like a butterfly with un-pinnable wings. Never to be studied. He thinks beneath her whole enigma she's just sad.

He tucks the letter into his shirtwaist and finishes feeding the pigs. Whatever it is he can't read it now. All day he is distracted by it. His father tells him to "wipe that grin off your face we've got work to do" and so he does. But he must bite down on his lip to do so. It has to be from Hanschen, it has to be! He tears himself apart all day. Finally, after dinner, and prayers, and all the work, and tucking his siblings, in he is able to slip up to his room. 

He lights his candle and locks his door, placing the letter on his bedside table. Pulling on his night shirt he finally relaxes and lays back on his bed, his curtains drawn, and settles into read. Tearing open the seal, he fears his heart pounds so loudly he swears it'll wake up his parents in the next door room.

_Dear Ernst_

_I hope this reaches you. I told Melitta and Thea to give it to Ilse for you but you never know with them. You can't trust anyone but yourself, we live in a world of fools. I realize, firstly, that I never told you goodbye. I am not a man of apologies nor one who gets sentimental. I'll leave that to you my dear. But even for me that was cruel and not willing. It happened too fast and I had no choice. I was whisked out of your life and for that I apologize. Yes, I did write that. You can't hold it over my head. I'll consistently deny it ever happening. But this letter is more than an apology._

_The fact is I am in Berlin right now which is miles away from where you, I am sure, lie curled up in your bed dreaming of me writing down these pretty words. I thought I could bear it I really did. But it turns out after over a year of our time together I have become accustomed to the feeling of your fingers and the taste of your lips. My legs long to intertwine with your own and my tongue to explore your mouth. I said I'd walk away unscathed yet here I am jerking off as I write this and imagining it is your hands in my pants right now. If the boys in my dorm could know what was in my head Ernst..._

_They think me perfect and untouchable. As I believe myself to be. Or thought myself until our time apart. I could handle it at first. But by the time I wrote this letter it was consuming me. Can you believe that? Me? Consumed by anything? Me? Spilling my guts on a paper to you. Maybe it all is based around the prospect that I think you won't see it. Or will be too cautious and prudish to read it. I was afraid to write it myself. The boys here are less constricted than at home. They speak of their father's whores and keep pinups in their suitcases. But they are all female whores of course. Everyone is truly the same despite a front._

_I wonder if you think of me? I know you do. But imagining your face when you read this terrifies me. I cannot bear to think of how you might react to this. Understand dear Ernst, that this is the most anyone has heard of the inside of my head. I am not for sharing and not for begging for affection. I do not build my lovers altars of passion like Melchior Gabor. I intrigue them with my ice cold enigma, let them touch the fire beneath and then leave them to burn. Or at least I said I would. You were, and are, my first lover Ernst. But my plan was to burn you. My plan was to forget you and enjoy the youthful experiment. Now it has become something more. Something I cannot control._

_I should've ended it a year ago. I should've said it was too risky. I try to convince myself of all of this. Yet I think of the vineyard and your thighs and us rolling in the dying grass. I think of the feeling of your cool tongue on my back and my stomach and how salty your neck always tasted. And I can't bring myself to regret it._

_The worst part is I think of more than just the sex. I think of your eyes and your smile and the way you fucked up Latin all the time. I think of your innocence and your optimism, the funny things you said without meaning to, the way your heart is so full of kindness to all living things. How your as far from me as you can get. I want to talk to you and hold you. I want it almost as much as the sex._

_But I can have neither the sex nor the romance. It seems we must resort to being lovers only through words. The chastity of the affair could drive a man insane. Perhaps it will. Maybe I'll come home and they'll find us drowned in the bathtub. Murder suicide, very poetic._

_The plan is, since I don't believe you can thwart it even if I tell you, to keep you captured by my words till I graduate. Then I'll send for you to Berlin then and set you up in a flat while I marry some perfect woman that helps my father's business. I'll keep you till it gets too dangerous and then send you home your father. It seems so simple to me but so did this and now look where I am._

_Christ Ernst what am I to do?_

_I can't get you out of my head._

_I can't get you out of whatever I have resembling a heart._

_I'm afraid to write more. Afraid I'll slice myself open and smear it on the parchment. Afraid I'll moan and the boy in the bed beside, a dull kid named Dieter, will hear me. He's such a dolt he won't know to report it. But still._

_I expect your swift reply._

_Dream of me my little Ernst,_

_Your Achilles._

He clutches the letter close, breathing heavily. The candle has almost been worn down.

It was terrifying and passionate and so unlike Hanschen. Still, he notices the lack of a name. Logical, if found Ernst'll be the only one incriminated. Logical and calculating like Hanschen. He uses this to rationalize with himself. To say nothing has changed. Convince himself he knows exactly how this will end. But he can only think of the number of times he used a term of endearment. And the time he called him his little Ernst. His all his. He wants to be nothing more than that. Damn the consequences.

He slips the letter under his mattress and grabs a paper from his desk.

 

**Author's Note:**

> So hopefully Hanschen wasn't too ooc but the point I tried to make was the he was acting unnaturally/  
> hmu on bewounded or grandilloinkhakis on tumblr if you have prompts or suggestions


End file.
